decorating efforts

Here are a few pictures of our living room... new furniture and all. Blake and I... well, really blake, has been working hard on it. It has only taken 3 or 4 tries to get the curtain rod right, but that's another story.




A few of bo, because he was being so cute and he hasn't made the blog in a while.

Little late posting

Here is a photo that I took in the car during the long drive to tx. I
had to post it so everyone could see how full our car was. All that
stuff in the back plus go in my/Blake's lap the whole way. I've never
felt so close to my boys.

Settling In

Blake and I are working hard trying to get settled in our new place. We finally received all of our furniture and other belongings last wednesday. I am happy to not be living in an empty apartment anymore. I've never appreciated a sofa so much. (We didn't have a sofa all summer in California as one wouldn't fit in our car if we were to purchase one on Craig's List.)
My mom got stranded at the airport last week when my brother's job ran late, so I went to pick her up. She ended up staying the night and was a huge help unpacking my kitchen and lining my cabinets. She finally got to go home when my dad came to pick her up the next day. Thanks for your help! (I'm still not quite done with the kitchen... I've been working on it on and off... washing EVERYTHING I own before putting it in the cabinet. Believe me, it is as fun as it sounds.
Other than that, we have been on the search for a new tv cabinet/stand that will fit in the recessed area in our apartment. We've looked EVERYWHERE and finally found one at Pier 1 that we both like. I think it will look pretty cool once we get it and set everything up. By the way... since we have so many electronics, I used boxes to pack the cords and keep them all together. We have 2 boxes just of cords. I don't know anyone who should have that many... but for some reason we do. Crazy, crazy. Anyway, That's about all I have to say for now. Hopefully I'll be able to get some stuff hung on the walls and take some pictures of our new place in the coming week.
Till next time...

Here, finally. And happy birthday to my husband.

We've made it here... And it just so happens to be Blake's birthday. So, happy birthday to my sweet husband. You mean more to me than you know and I'm happy that we got to celebrate you today. I could say a lot more, but my thumbs are already tired from typing on my tiny iPhone keyboard. Hopefully tomorrow we will have real Internet. We still won't have furniture, but we have each other... And bo. Who needs furniture?
I love you Blake!

Today's results

This is our mileage from our final fill up of the day. Pretty good right? Tomorrow, we pull into Dallas. Can't wait to be done driving.

On the road again...

We decided to go ahead and leave tonight. At 9:15 pm we pulled out of our parking lot. I think we were both tired of sleeping on an air mattress. Our destination for the evening? Motel 6 in Coalina, CA. Why motel 6? We found out on our way to CA that they are pet friendly (at no extra charge), plentiful, and overall inexpensive. Not fancy, but usually handy. Anyway, the air conditioner didn't work in our first room and so Blake was nice enough to take care of his whining wife and handle it. We are now nice and cool.
Here's the funny story if the evening... When we finally got in the car, Blake looks over at me and says, "ok, where do we go from here?". I laughed and pulled out the iPhone for help. Pretty funny. We've done all this planning and have completed the packing of the car, and don't know how to get out of here. Speaking of our packing... Our car is packed to the brim. We couldn't fit one more bag or anything. We can't see out the back window at all. Should be a fun, tight trip. Stay tuned for more posts from the road.

How I spent my summer vacation:

Last Monday I took a trip to New York. I took a few days off of work, and planned out every second of my visit. I would fly Virgin America ( it is a pretty cool plane with cool lights, free TV, and instead of attendants coming by once with a cart, you order what you want off of your screen and they bring it to you) into JFK, take a cab into Manhattan, see some friends, visit with some guys out in Queens, walk around the city to enjoy the locals, find some authentic New York cuisine, and then come back to San Francisco and see my lovely wife.

The only hitch was that I had to get all of my stuff out of my apartment in Manhattan, and storage in Queens in the process while selling all the stuff we aren't bringing back with us on Craigslist and then clean or trash what was left. I got in at close to 11PM, decided I wasn't tired, but it was too late to take stuff off the walls of the apartment and went by the Apple store on Fifth Avenue. I got there, talked with some friends ( who generally seemed happy for me and my opportunity with Watermark), listened to them go on about the general craziness and happenings of the night, and then headed home around 2AM.

Since I couldn't sleep, I figured I would watch some tv and fall asleep. No small task, as all I could think of was all that I had to do that next day, and the movers were coming at 8AM! I finally fell asleep around 5AM (thanks to whatever came on CNN headline after Glenn Beck,) only to wake up before my alarm around 7:15 to start finishing getting things ready for the movers.

The movers came just about on time (close to 9AM but the window was between 8 and 10), and were finished moving things out of the storage unit in Queens by 12:30. I sat around the apartment, cleaning and meeting with people to pick up furniture and such. ( A brief word of caution for all you in the Inter-Web-Land, if you post something for craigslist for free DO NOT PUT YOUR PHONE NUMBER.) In the midst of this, I tried to sleep in our circle chair, mostly unsuccessfully, and grabbed a slice from Arturo's Pizza up the street, literally up as there is a decent hill.

I met with our NY pastor that night at Starbucks, did some catching up and then went home to sleep in the circle chair. JR, our pastor in NY, called me a couple minutes later, asked if I needed a place to sleep, and suggested a friend nearby who had an extra bedroom. I had completely forgotten they had space for guests, or I would have called myself. Luckily, they were still awake and welcomed me in for the night. It was great to see them, and I was glad for that little accident.

Went to bed around 11PM (after getting 2 hours the night before and maybe 1 hour between Craigslisters), and woke up at 6:45 to meet someone to purchase the great circle chair I bought in college. I will miss the times we had together. That first car ride to Abilene. That first assembly under my bed that I set up on cinder blocks. That 1st disassembly at the end of the semester to move into the dorm as an RA. All those other moves. And the dirt, who can forget cleaning off the dirt. Man, could that black pillow show dirt.

Anyhow, after that I returned the cable box, oddly enough the the same girl I had received it from in May. I went to the store again for a final goodbye, and to talk to the daytime managers there about how great my summer experience was, and then met a friend for lunch before catching an earlier flight back to see Whitney. She met me at the airport and we went to In-and-Out Burger.

Overall it was a pretty decent trip, but I am glad I only have to move out of New York once. As fun and as hard as it is to live in New York, I am glad I had the opportunity.

Paranoid

Sorry for the lame pictures 2 posts in a row. The big camera is packed, and Blake has the other one, so I'm left to use the camera on my phone. Oh well. Since Blake packed his suitcase to go to NYC, Bo has been freaking out. The sight of any suitcase means freak out time for him. Yesterday, I packed all of our clothes, and really everything else in the apartment and left my suitcase for the weekend on the floor. Here's what Bo did... He climbed right in.He spent the rest of the evening in the suitcase, as well as the whole morning this morning. I guess he figured that I couldn't leave him if he was in it. Crazy guy.I'm about to head to the airport to pick up Blake. Bo an I have both missed him and are excited to get him back! I'm going to see what I can do to get him to write a blog about his few days there. It was a pretty busy trip.

What is your design style?

We have a new apartment, or well, we will in a week. I told you a little bit about our new apartment here, so you know that it is 1200 sq ft. (a big change over 350 in NYC.) That said, we're going to need some new stuff to fill it up, so I've been looking at furniture online so I can have a good idea of what I like, show it to Blake to see if he likes it, and can find the best deal. I ran across this quiz on hgtv.com. It asks you 10 questions about what you like, and tells you your style based on that. Go ahead... Take the quiz and tell me your results. I'm curious what style everyone is going to be. Click here.
The quiz said that I am "Rustic Comfort"(read the full description below). I still don't know that I agree with that title because pretty much nothing I choose is "rustic", but after reading the description, I can see how that might work, but I would change it to "Contemporary Comfort". I think that would fit me much better because I like contemporary styled furniture, but I don't want to be sitting on weird plastic furniture either. I can see where the functional comes into play from our stay in NYC. It was a rule that everything in the apartment must serve at least 2 but preferably 3 purposes.
I also think that "rustic comfort" might just be a catch all... for the person who chose too many different styles in the quiz. Maybe in that case, they should call it "eclectic comfort" or even "eclectic contemporary". Yeah, that might fit me better than "rustic". What's your take?

Rustic Comfort

The verdict is in, but there's a twist. Your design style is a combination: part updated country, part ethnic flair, both with a contemporary look and feel. You need a home with casual and practical style – an environment that'll work for kids, pets, company and more. The emphasis is on simple yet attractive, durable furniture will hold up over time while your colorful accessories energize and entertain for years.

"The furniture for this design style could be contemporary or traditional, says Julie Rackley, an interior designer in Bellevue, Washington. "The common threads are comfort and durability" That means easy-to-clean synthetic blends like micro-fiber, which cleans up swiftly with a sponge. (So long silk!) Function is a key consideration as well. A multi-purpose ottoman that doubles as a coffee table or storage unit would work for you.

Craig's list 2

Here's an update from the last post. We did end up selling our dresser. Awesome. It happened to be to a cute couple that just got married 3 weeks ago. She said that after moving into his apartment, she realized that he didn't have any drawers and it has been driving her crazy. (I can understand that.) Needless to say, she was really excited to get our drawers.
Next up for sale here in CA... our chairs, tv, tv stand, and microwave. I'll wait to list those till next week. I don't want to be in an empty apartment for another week with nowhere to sit, sleep (because we already sold our mattress), put my clothes, entertain myself, or cook. That doesn't sound like much fun at all.
We also have a few things to get rid of in NYC... our air conditioner, armoire, and tv stand (because it is too wide to fit in our new apartment). Blake will get those sold next week when he's in NYC. Speaking of... friends in NYC, Blake will be there late monday night through wednesday afternoon/evening. I'm sure he'd love to see you!

Craig's list...

It's a strange thing. You list your personal belongings for people to buy. They email you and say they will offer some ridiculously low price for an item that is worth much more. They might come over and examine the item you have for sale... only to try to again offer you much less than it is worth. It is a somewhat strange feeling.
Since we are leaving here in less than 2 weeks, we've begun trying to get rid of the things that won't fit in our car for the ride to Dallas. We started with our new memory foam mattress and bedroom dresser that we got when we moved here. We figured we'd go ahead and list them now so that they have a little longer to sell since they were new and we wanted a little more money for them than most things on Craig's list. The mattress sold pretty quickly and since Saturday, we've been sleeping on an air mattress. Boy was I spoiled to that awesome memory foam mattress. I'll never get any other kind. If you want to know where we got it, leave a comment or email me. I'll be happy to share my secret. As for the dresser, I think someone is going to come get it today. We'll see.
Still to get listed... the microwave, 2 chairs that we bought on Craig's list at the beginning of the summer, and a used tv and stand that we also got on Craig's list. Overall, I think we are looking to lose less than $100 total after we've sold everything... a much better option than renting furniture at a minimum price of $300 a month. (And honestly, for $300, I think we may have ended up with a NASTY sofa and mattress and not much more. I'll shop for my self, thank you.)

hope it may help you someday

Today I've spent most of the day trying to find out the service providers for our new apartment so that when we move in, we'll be ready to go. Why do you care that I did that today? Well, you might or might not care in the long run, but hang with me...
On the "welcome letter" we got from our new apartment complex, it states that at&t is our provider for cable and internet. AT&T is our provider for internet here, and the whole first month of service, I think we called AT&T about every other day because it doesn't work. Finally Blake figured out something that made it work a little better. I don't know what, but I guess it is nice to live with someone who can figure that stuff out.
Alright, back to today... I took a look on the at&t website to see if I could find out what tv service they offered in our new area. Blake was hoping for U-verse... but no, it didn't look like that would work at our new apartment. The only other service they offer is through dish network. That would be fine but... our apartment faces the north, and to get satellite service, it has to have a southern view. Great... now what. So, I decide that I should just call AT&T because maybe I misunderstood the services that they offer... I'm on hold for what seems like forever (10 minutes) and finally a woman comes on the line and I her that I am trying to find out what service they offer in my new apartment. I give her our new address and she said "Hold, please...." Click... the line went dead.
Great, so I just waited on hold for 10 minutes for nothing. Time to try again...
This time it is a guy that answers... He says.. "I can't look that up for you. I can transfer you to U-verse..."
I said, "I already looked them up, and that service isn't offered, but I see that you have some other sort of service. Can you tell me about that? Is that what is used in our apartment complex?" He says... "I can't tell you if it is used. You can look online."
Getting frustrated now... "No, in fact I can't look online for that other service... it says to call this number for more information, but you can't tell me if that service is offered to me?"
"No, but I can transfer you to U-verse."
I ask to speak to his supervisor because obviously I already said... U-verse is not available.
He said that he doesn't have a supervisor... Liar. I got his name and badge number. I plan on reporting him.
I finally let him transfer me hoping for a better person this time. The next person was a lady. It started off great until she started asking me for my social security number. "WHAT? I just want to find out if you offer service in my new area. I'm not signing up today. I'm just finding out my options and prices."
She said, "Well, I can't find out if it is available if you don't give it to me. We have to check your credit before we can approve you."
I reminded her that I AM NOT GETTING SERVICE TODAY. I AM JUST FINDING OUT IF IT IS AVAILABLE IN MY APARTMENT. She persists and I ask her if she just wants me to make one up. Surprisingly she said... yes, so I did.
All this to find out that no, U-verse in fact is not available... Duh, I already knew that. She says that they do offer dish network in our area. I told her that our apartment faces the wrong way for that. Does she know if they have a central antenna? She said... "No, we don't do that." (Yes, as a matter of fact, I know that they do... but that is another story.)
The next call I made was to the apartment to find out more information. Here's what I found out... Yes, they use the dish network through AT&T. Problem comes when my apartment faces north. She didn't have a solution for that. She gave me another number to call for a guy that might know what the solution is.
Great... Call number 4...
He said that they do in fact have a central antenna. Just like I thought. Problem solved. All that, and I don't even think we are going to get cable right now. I was really just looking so that I could get internet service with the same company that we would eventually get tv through. Ahh, frustrating.
So, here's the real reason for the post. In my search for information, I stumbled across this site... www.whitefence.com. You tell them your new address and they tell you what service is there for Internet, phone, cable, utilities, newspaper, etc. It is a pretty good help even if I don't book anything through them. It is nice to know what options I have for electric companies.
Hoping White Fence helps you...

working on stuff...

The last few days have been moving planning central around here. Task at hand... Get things from here (california) and everything from New York including the furniture from our apartment as well as all of our stuff from storage in Queens to meet in the middle... Dallas. crazy for sure. Blake has been on the phone with movers ALL DAY. Poor guy. They aren't the nicest folks around. On a high note, we found an apartment and put our application in today. Big relief! Though I'm not going to tell you the address on here, just in case there are stalkers reading this, I will tell you that it is right at 1200 square feet. NYC friends: you read that correctly. We're excited. Our NYC apartment was a whole 350 square feet if you count the long hall in the entryway. I don't think it takes a math expert to figure out that it is A LOT bigger. It comes complete with 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a fireplace, balcony and all of the other comforts you get in the real world. That said... We'll have an extra bedroom and bathroom just waiting for someone to come use them. Please consider this your open invite.
Alright, that's what's happening with us today. Stay tuned for more...

A bit of a different direction...

As some of you know, and many of you don't, we are currently in California so I can work for Apple for the summer. It is a program that is set up so that retail employees who are good at what they do have the opportunity to advance in the company into the corporate environment. Things have been going really well here, and we have loved the experience. The weather is great, there are so many things we haven't seen, there is so much more space than New York, there are less homeless people chasing you on the street for money. Overall, we like it a lot here, and couldn't picture ourselves going back to New York after this.

This is probably why we are not going back to New York at the end of this month. (That isn't entirely true, I will be going back for a few days to get all of our stuff together and coordinate movers in getting our stuff out of storage, out of our apartment, and selling the rest online.) The funny thing is, we won't be staying in California either. About the same time I applied for the position here with Apple, maybe the month before, I had spoken with a guy at a pretty cool church in Dallas about working there to help on their technical team. I have been practicing my sound skills, technical skills and nun-chuck skills at the church we went to in New York, and felt like it was something I wanted to pursue as a career. A couple of weeks ago they offered me a position to work there full time, helping with sound, lights, technical aspects of the church, and training others in "the way of the tech".

Whitney and I prayed a lot about it, because we did not want to rush into anything just because there was something we wanted to do. We did not want to stay in California just because it was the financially smart thing to do. (I don't know if you know this, but Apple makes some pretty awesome stuff, and is a really good company to work for.) We also did not want to run into something where it wouldn't be a good fit, where we didn't believe that we were doing the right thing, and where we didn't feel like we were doing something that would help us grow in Christ. We like the church, we like the people, we feel that the church and my role there will meet us where we are, so we have decided to take things in a different direction than we had originally planned at the start of the summer.

We are super excited to be moving to Dallas. There is so much that needs to be done, but we are confident that everything will go as smoothly as it normally does. Thank you all for any prayers and support you can give us. We definitely appreciate them.

the end of a long roadtrip

Well, we finally made it. We reached Sunnyvale (a few days ago). The last day of driving was the most beautiful, so I thought I'd share some pictures of the scenery.
These are the elephant seals that we saw. How cool are they!?! Just a cool rock that was at the same place as the seals. This guy was pretty funny. He would move about 5 feet and decide it was too much work and would stop... rest for a bit... and then start moving again.
The view from a cliff on the side of the road. I think they call them "vista points" around here.Bo's not too sure about this.... but soon he gained his confidence and took in the view.
Here we are... we've reached "the mothership". Blake wouldn't let me take his picture in front of it. This is all he would let me take.How amazing is it all? I'll do my best to keep you up to date on the happenings of California, but until then...

An Update from the Road... (with pictures this time!)

Some pictures from the road...
The Thing!?!? Blake and I already had the opportunity to see "The Thing" when we were moving to Arizona a few years ago. It was such a memorable experience that we decided to take my mom as we drove through there on our way to California. The billboards for "the thing" start hundreds of miles before you actually reach "the thing", so we got her all excited about seeing "it". Here she is with "The Thing". I won't tell you what is in the box, nor will I show you the picture I took of it. I'd not want to ruin it in case you are driving down I10 through Arizona.

I took the following photos as we drove through California on the 101 and highway 1. They were just taken from the car going 70mph, so if you look carefully, you might see reflections from the car window. I thought it was just too beautiful to pass up.

The ocean near San Simeon where we are staying tonight. Don't let the sun fool you. It is actually around 50 degrees and CRAZY windy.

A little mexican food place where we ate dinner.

Quick Update

We've made it to California... San Diego to be exact. It's been a long several days of driving, but it has also been enjoyable. Bo is loving long days in the car. It is, after all, his favorite thing to do. Tomorrow we'll head toward the San Jose area, but won't make it all the way before our apartment office closes, so we'll save that for Thursday. Not a lot more to write for now, but I'll send more updates as they happen. We miss you all!

The Final Countdown (or How I spent the last 48 hours)

So, with much patience and persistence, I finally made it to Dallas last night, and getting ready to drive to California.  Now you might say "Blake, what ever do you mean?"  (Honestly though, if you are saying that and I am not there, seems like you might be the one with the problems.)  

And so our story begins...

It was a quiet Thursday night at work.  I was in the back all night fixing computers, when I got an email from a guy at church who I had asked if I could use their car.  We talked back and forth for a while, and got all the details worked out, and I was going to call him when I got off work to meet up and borrow his car.  And now the story gets interesting.

So I call him at 9AM on Friday and he says, "Well, to tell you the truth, I am glad you didn't get off earlier.  There was all this rumbling outside and a crane on one of the buildings fell about an hour ago.  I don't know how long it will take to clear everything up, so why don't you call back later this afternoon."  Can you believe it, a crane on a building near my apartment collapses and leaves the city in uproar and me carless for now.  Thinking fast I have hedged my bets and have also contacted 2 other friends.  One calls back and says that his inspection is out on his car, but I can still use it if I want, and the other doesn't respond.  He usually doesn't though.  He is pretty good about thinking things through and having an answer, but not telling me his response until I call or see him in person.

So, I did some light packing, watched Lost and the news, had a conference call about the summer program I am in with Apple, and then slept for about an hour.  When I woke up at 4PM, and called my friend near the collapsed crane, he said they had shut down the entire area for investigation and safety, and didn't know when it would reopen.  The final answer was "not while I am in New York".  

Still waiting to hear from my other friend, I went to Time Warner to return my cable box for a non-HD version for a friend who is staying in my apartment while I am gone.  I got there and took a number, and wouldn't you know, Time Warner gave me number 666.  After waiting in purgatory there for almost 45 minutes, my number was called and I was seated at Desk 13.

Now, I am not a superstitious  person, but those are bad numbers to team up I would think. Fortunately everything ran smoothly, and I was out of there without incident.  I even paid my bill.

I got back home and decided to call my other friend who had not gotten back to me, and he said his mom wasn't going to be able to bring his car into the city because she had to go and get his dad from the hospital.  I had to do something, and I needed to get it done that night!.  I checked a couple of car rental places, and found out that in Manhattan, Hertz rents cars by the hour.  I ran the 4 blocks to the nearest Hertz, got a car, came home and threw my stuff in the car and left.  If only it were that easy.  In actuality, I took stuff out in 4 or 5 trips up and down 3 flights of stairs, got locked out the apartment building for a little while, and even lost my phone for about 20 minutes.

I met up with my friend whose mom went to get his dad, and we went into the ghetto of Long Island City to my storage space. I took him to work, and printed off my boarding pass before returning the car about 10:30PM.  on a side note, the reason I printed my pass online as opposed to at the desk, was that to have a second bag with AirTran, they charge you $10 to check it online, and $20 in person.

I went home and got my laundry together and took it to the nearby mat.  Around 12:30AM I got home, ate a PB&J( the first time I had eaten since breakfast), and packed my bags until I could no more.  Slept for about 6 hours, and went to meet some friends from church for breakfast. Then it was off to a fond farewell from my friends at Apple, and then back home to finish packing my bags.

There wasn't as much left as I thought there was, so that wasn't so bad.  I met up with the girl who is staying in my apartment while I am away, and went to pay the rent and then took off for the airport.  (Another side note, the landlord's office is right next to a movie theater showing the Sex and the City Movie, and there was a line of about 300+ people, 18 of which were guys. All of these people are waiting to see a movie about a TV show that ended a while back, and the weather in New York was a mix of Rain and heat which means muggier than Central Park at night.)

The flight was delayed, but everything ran smoothly.  As I was landing in Atlanta to switch planes, I realized the reason there wasn't so much to pack was that I had left 1 of my 3 loads of laundry at my neighborhood laundry mat in New York.  I called them, they said they didn't know if they had it, and then I called my pastor who lives near me.  He called back and said he was on his way home from seeing Iron Man (probably the best summer release to date), and would stop by.  They had all my clothes in a bag, and is going to mail them to the apartment that I am not yet at in the Bay Area of California.  

All in all, I have finished the 1st leg of my trip, and look forward to spending time with Whitney on the road for the next 1800 miles.  Hopefully the 2nd part won't be the same as the first, although it looks like we might have a flat tire...

the rundown

Just thought some of you might be interested in or roadtrip plans to California. It should be a fun one.

June 1st, 12:20 am - Blake lands at DFW airport from NYC.
June 1st, morning - Blake, mom and I head out west. We'll see how far we'll get, but our goal is the big city of Pacos, TX. What's there, you ask? Nothing... nothing at all. It just looked like a good stopping point.
June 2nd - drive... drive... drive...
June 3rd - Drive some more... go to San Diego to see some of my Mom's friends and enjoy the city.
June 4th - Hang out in San Diego some more, and start in the direction of Cupertino.
June 5th - Lord willing... arrive at the new home base of the Sawyer's, Cupertino, CA.

Blake has had an interesting time these last 2 days in NYC. I won't write all about it now, I'll let him do it. He'll be much funnier than I am anyway. Here's a quick story to set the tone though... I just got off of the phone with him. He's in the airport in Atlanta waiting for his next flight. He just realized that last night when he was doing laundry, he only emptied 2 of the 3 dryers at the laundry mat. He is now without 1/3 of his clothes. I'm not sure if they have them or not, but I think it is a pretty funny story to not notice until he is across the country. We shall see how this one plays out!

check it out!

While I'm here in TX, my main task is to purchase a car. It's been a little tough since everyone here is looking for the same car I am looking for (cheap, reliable, low miles, good gas milage), but I think we found the perfect one today! My mom and I went looking in Arlington at a few cars and nothing really "fit the bill" in one way or another. I came across this one that looked good online, but was a little ways outside of town, so we waited till last thing this afternoon to go out there. When we got there, we saw this cute car. ("Cute" - as I use it... and Blake defines it means - "I like it".) We took it out for a drive and decided it is just what I'm looking for... down to the color! So, here are the specs... Black 2006 Toyota Corolla S with low miles. It's like new on the inside and out! P.S. - the "S" means "sport". I'm not sure how sporty a Corolla can get, but the only difference I can see is the extra part below the car to make it look lower and the shiny finishings on the inside... and a little sportier steering wheel and gages. I was hoping it meant a super power motor, but no such luck there. It isn't ours yet, but tomorrow or Friday we hope to finalize everything so I can drive it off the lot! We've been praying for a car that fulfills our needs (and hopefully some of our desires), and it is a great feeling to actually get to see this car we've been praying for. Now, we just need to pray that the rest of this process comes through easily and quickly.
I'll keep you updated on the progress though!

Mixed Feelings

Tomorrow morning I fly out on my way to Texas... I'll be there for a few weeks before heading out to California. I'm finishing up my packing... everything I'll need for the summer! It's a little strange not knowing if we will be coming back here at the end of all this. I don't know if I should say goodbye to our friends, apartment, and neighborhood or just... I'll see you again in 3 months.
Bo is on edge. I got out the suitcases yesterday to begin putting clothes in them. Any time he sees a suitcase, he knows something is going on. He will be coming with me tomorrow, so he shouldn't worry, but you can't tell a dog that, so I just ignore him. It has worked a little bit in calming him down. I'll wait till morning to tell him he gets to come with me.
All that said... I'll miss NYC and the people that make it. I know that even if we don't move back, we will be back to visit. Even though it won't be quite the same... it will be nice to see the city from another perspective.

what I see

This is the sight in the living room right now. It's a beautiful one,
right? The main thing I'm finding challenging right now is finding a
place to put the boxes once they are packed. These are now too high
for me to stack them any higher, and I am out of room everywhere
else. I guess Blake will have to help me find some new space
tomorrow. The good news... I've just about finished everything in the
kitchen. That has been the hardest part.
The other good news from today... we reserved an apartment for the
summer! What a relief! It has been tough to find a place that has
short term leases and accepts dogs... is close to Blake's work and
finally... is not too expensive. Yes, I know california is
expensive... but I'll never pay THAT much to rent a small 1 bedroom
for a month... Now granted, those expensive places are furnished and
our place isn't, but I'd rather buy a few basics and save some $$$ on
rent.
Tomorrow on the list... start packing clothes... sorting through and
figuring out what we will need for the next 3.5 months. On top of
figuring out WHAT we need is trying to figure out HOW MUCH we can cram
in to suitcases and onto a plane. Ahhh... I love moving...

new stuff is happening... and it's crazy

So, here's the word... Blake and I are moving! Where, you ask? California! We have committed for the summer, but we don't know what is happening after that. I won't speak too much for Blake, but I'm feeling a huge range of emotions. I'm excited for the new experience, excited for Blake's new job (which I'm sure he will do a great job!), excited to meet new people, excited about the possibility of a guest bedroom where I can't wait to host our friends and family from all over the country, and I'm excited about the comforts of life that we will never again take for granted (dishwasher, laundry that is closer than 4 blocks and 3 flights of stairs away, space... space... and a little more space). I'm SO SAD to leave our friends here in NYC who have become more like family (but thankful that we live in a time of planes so that they can come see us... and we can come back and see them). I'm sad to leave this BEAUTIFUL city. I don't think there is another city like it in the world.
I never thought I would be this excited about getting a car! Especially since we are just getting an inexpensive one (read... cheap and reliable... and if I have anything to say about it... super cute). I've got to get used to driving again. I haven't done much of that in the last 3 years. We'll be getting a car in the next few weeks, so I'll be sure to keep you updated with what we end up with.
I'm feeling pretty stressed as well... I'll be leaving next wednesday (1 week away!) and won't be coming back (at least for a while). We're going for Amanda's graduation (Blake's sister), and then I'm just going to stay to get a car and hang out with my family for a couple of weeks. My mom and I will then drive... yes drive... to California. To tell the truth... I'm actually looking forward a good cross country road trip. I'm sure there will be some blogs along the way. Right now, I'm trying to get everything packed so that Blake doesn't have to do it all while he is working and I'm gone. He'll just have a few necessities to get through the next few weeks. Since everything is staying here in storage, I'm also trying to figure out everything we will need for the next 3 months. We can only take as much as we can carry on the plane though.
So, all that said, life around here is kind of upside down and a bit crazy right now. There you go... a nice long update with what's happening with the sawyers! Stay tuned to see how things end up going.